Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 26th of February 2020
Case name: 2020_02_26-WM456
Situation: A boat carrying 16 travellers that had left from Dakhla was rescued by the Spanish coastguard to Las Palmas.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: At 17:38 CET of Wednesday the 26th of February the Alarm Phone was alerted by a contact person in touch with the relatives of the travellers, to a boat in distress, carrying 16 people, including 5 women. The boat had left from Dakhla and was heading towards the Canary Islands. Our shift team immediately tried to contact the travellers directly however we were unable to reach their phones. At 21:36 we called the coastguard in Las Palmas and they told us that they had already been informed about this distress case, they had been searching for this boat, and other boats during the day but with no results, the search operation would resume the following morning. The following morning we once again tried to reach the travellers but their phones were off. At 09:50 we called Las Palmas coastguard who told us that the search operation would resume soon, and advised us to check with the Moroccan coastguard wether our boat had been intercepted. We then called the Moroccan coastguard who informed us that they had rescued two boats near the coast of Dakhla, however the number of travellers in these boats did not correspond to those of our case. In the afternoon we still had no news about the boat from neither our contact persons nor the travellers themselves whom we still could not reach. At 21:20 we called again the coastguard in Las Palmas who had no news but again advised us to call the Moroccan coastguard. Our shift team then spoke to the Moroccan coastguard, who had rescued a boat during the day, however the number of travellers on board of the rescued boat again did not match our information about this case. During the night we sent an email to Spanish and Moroccan authorities summarizing all the information we had concerning this case. The following day, at 14:39 we spoke to the coastguard in Las Palmas who informed us that they had localized a boat carrying 16 travellers, of which 5 women, and that a rescue operation was ongoing. At 15:30 we received an email from Spanish authorities confirming that a boat with 16 travellers had been rescued to Gran Canaria. Although we were ultimately never able to establish direct contact with the travellers, we safely assumed that the rescued boat was the one we had been alerted to.